


Dancing In The Bath

by Sabina7



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Game of Thrones RPF
Genre: Break Up, Crushes, Depression, F/M, Love, RPF, Romance, lockdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24961630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabina7/pseuds/Sabina7
Summary: "They haven’t been in touch for 3 months now and it’s been over a year since they’ve seen each other."Gwendoline watches The Global Citizen - Global Goal: 'Unite for Our Future — The Concert'  and thinks about Nikolaj.
Relationships: Gwendoline Christie & Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gwendoline Christie/Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Kudos: 7





	Dancing In The Bath

London

Saturday night, 27th of June 2020

Gwendoline is alone at home. Giles went to the studio in the afternoon. He has a new idea and had to start work. Gwendoline is used to Giles’ work style and ethic. Once he has an idea, he is consumed by it, he has to get it out of his head. She never stood in the way of that. Gwendoline decides to go for a walk by the Thames. The weather forecast was thunderstorms but at that point it was sunny and warm so she thought she should make the most of it before the rain started. When she gets back home she’s tired, her legs and back hurt but she’s pleased with herself for getting some exercise. Giles is not back yet so she grabs something to eat and she lets herself drop into the comfy settee and opens her Twitter app. She has hundreds of notifications because of her previous post about the streaming of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream". She goes through them quickly and then turns her attention to her newsfeed. She’s scrolling down mindlessly when a post catches her eye. Nikolaj tweeted that he is supporting the Global Citizen concert that evening. She looks at the time and realises that it had already started. She taps on the link and pauses the video “I guess I can rewind and watch it from the start. It’s not like I had any better plans this evening“ she thinks to herself. “I can listen to it while having a bath. My muscles are so tense I could use a nice soak.” She goes to the bath, turns on the tap and reaches for her bath salts and realises she ran out. “Oh, shoot, I need to add that to my online order. I knew I forgot something.” So she pours a generous amount of shower gel in the bathtub instead. “This will have to do!”

Gwendoline walks out of the bathroom and comes back with her favourite scented candle in one hand, it’s a large 3 in 1 candle that smells of oranges. It's her favourite candle because it is big enough to lit up the whole bathroom. She is also holding a glass of her favourite wine in the other hand. She places the candle on the edge of the bath closest to the wall, at the end near the tap and the glass on the windowsill. She reaches for her phone and rewinds the show from the start and props the phone up against her toiletries basket on the windowsill. “I won’t be able to see much on the small screen but I can listen to it.” She gets undressed, turns the lights off and steps into the bath. The water is too hot so she opens the window to allow the steam out and runs the cold tap to adjust the temperature until she’s happy. She reaches for a towel to place underneath her head and settles into the bath with the wine glass in her hand. She can’t see the screen from over there but she’s not bothered, as she closes her eyes.

Gwendoline is listening to the music and the short speeches. She is enjoying the hot water soothing her aching muscles. She can feel the familiar relaxing buzz of the wine warming up her muscles from inside and it feels like the knots in her back and legs are starting to untie themselves one by one. Her mind is calm and still until a well-hidden memory comes at the forefront of her relaxed mind like a naughty child who escaped their bed and climbs over the safety gate at the top of the stairs. She can see Nikolaj sitting across from her in the water. He’s not in her bath for real, she knows that, at least. It’s just a flashback of the scene she filmed with him years ago. At first she smiles with melancholy but then she feels the sadness creeping into her heart and a tear runs down her cheek. Gwendoline wipes her face trying not to get any bubbles in her eyes. She takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. She makes a conscious effort of trying to push the image of the naked Nikolaj away from her mind. She hasn’t opened her eyes. In a way she doesn’t want to open them, she doesn't want see him but she doesn’t want to not see him either! It’s always the same thing! The same push and pull they always had, the same love to hate, hate to love when she thinks of him even now, years later. “Will it ever change?” she asks rhetorically while opening her eyes. She sits up in the bath trying to focus on the music. She starts moving in the rhythm of the music trying to get lost into the sound. 

But her mind soon spirals back to her old thinking pattern.“I wonder if he watched the streaming of my play. I wonder if he is thinking of me wondering if I am watching this. I wonder if he is watching… If he is, he must be with his family! Grrrrr!” Gwendoline fights those thoughts and tries to shoo them out of her mind quickly “No! I refuse to torture myself like that! Why do I do this to myself?!”  
They haven’t been in touch for 3 months now and it’s been over a year since they’ve seen each other. They were meant to meet at the end of March. She had her flight booked but the borders closed right before she was meant to fly out. When rumours of the possibility of a lockdown started, she asked Nikolaj what he thought about it. He replied that she should postpone her plans. The local governments had not made any announcements yet. And he gave up on their plans to see each other. That hurt her. She didn’t want to be hurt by it, she knew it was not his fault but it still felt like a rejection. He gave up too soon. He should have at least said he wanted to see her, he should have said let’s wait and see and hope for the best, but no, he gave up at the first hint of a potential obstacle. 

They never had it easy. Every time she thought they will have a breakthrough something happened. It reminded her about the film “The Adjustment Bureau”. It always felt that when they were about to be together, some powerful forces pulled them apart again. At the beginning, that added to the attraction, but over the years it became emotionally exhausting and terribly frustrating. She remembers the time she mentioned the concept of the film to Nikolaj and he said in a heartbeat “Fuck the bureau” And her heart grew with hope. On the day they restricted flights to and from the UK she summoned all her courage and texted him that she was disappointed how easily he gave up and that it felt like a rejection. He came back with a cruel reply: “I told you the sensible thing to do was not to travel. And no, it was not a rejection.” 

It was the start of the lockdown, she was stuck at home with nothing to do but run through all the memories, good and bad and his cold words toward her. That’s when she realised he will never pick her. He never picked her. She then decided that this, whatever this was, had to stop. And she sent him a goodbye message saying something along the lines “Ok, you win. I give up.” She blocked him and deleted his number. She blocked him because she knew if she didn’t, she would keep looking at the phone every single minute checking if he had texted. She would sleep with the phone under her pillow and she would even take it to the bathroom with her when she went for a pee. She had been in this situation so many times over the years. She knew she didn’t do well in this constant waiting state. She deleted his number because she didn’t trust herself she wouldn’t text him again. She knew she needed time away from him. What she didn't know was that it would trigger her to go into the darkest depression she had ever experienced. She spent most of the days in bed, binging on TV series. She lost track of day and night, she would sleep during the day and be up all night, she would barely eat. Giles tried to be there for her but she pushed him away so many times until he eventually gave up and focussed even more on his work.

After about 2 weeks of this self-destructive behaviour, she realised she was not helping herself so she decided to get into a routine. She started to get up from the bed and tidied up the flat. She brushed her teeth and had a shower each morning. She even changed her clothes. She started calling her friends and little by little she came back to her usual self. “I guess you have to hit rock bottom in order to get up again.” She thought. She also thought that she was ok, after many years, she was actually ok. She knew she made the right decision. The only thing she regretted was not doing all this sooner.  


She had wasted so much time waiting for Nikolaj to make up his mind and pick her. He never did. She waited for him to do some sort of a big gesture or at least to admit that he loved her. She often wondered whether she was the only one who felt this deep connection but just by looking at him, she knew he felt it as well. The way he looked at her, his body language screamed the same things she was feeling as well. But he never took any action to move towards her. And she never asked him to. They never talked about this. She knew how she felt about him and she only guessed how he felt about her. She was about to approach the subject many a time but never went through with it. There was always this thick tension between them and in time, she got used to it, sort of. When they were apart, she missed it, when they were working together she enjoyed the thrill of it, and the time in between the two worlds, she dreaded it. “It has certainly been an emotionally intense decade. Some people don’t feel anything even near this kind of intensity in their whole lives!” she kept telling herself. The end of the series had hit her hard but she made a point of keeping busy. She considered this recent spiralling out of control as the end part of her post-GoT heartbreak.

Now that she felt better, it didn’t mean that she wasn’t thinking of Nikolaj at all. She did, but she did not feel as hurt as before. She did not feel hopeful that maybe someday, he will come running to her and they would live happily ever after in a romantic bliss peppered with arguments which lead to passionate make-up sex. What she felt was acceptance. She knows she loves him and she accepts that. She used to hate herself for falling for him. She hated the fact she fell for a stubborn, infuriating man and she hated the fact that she fell for a married man. She didn’t mean for it to happen. It took her by surprise. “Nikolaj is not even your type! How stupid can you be, Gwendoline?” Instead of fading in time, her crush developed into full-blown love over the years and that surprised her.  


Three months had passed since she sent that text to him. She unblocked him and added his number back into her contacts about a month after her breakdown. She felt in control. She added him back to check if she really was over it and passed the test. That empowered her thus she focussed more on herself and some new projects. She noticed a change within herself. She felt happier, she felt relieved, she was laughing more and being silly more often. She liked her new self. She hadn’t felt like this in a very long time. “In hindsight, I think this was some sort of an awakening, a levelling up! I am ready and excited for my future! I wonder what’s in store for me next?”

As on cue, “Paradise” by Coldplay starts playing. She remembers she is in her bath listening to the Global Citizen concert. She doesn’t know how long she zoned out for. “I love this song, it always felt like it was my song! Para-Para-Para-dise, Para-Para-Para-dise, Para-Para-Para-dise” she starts singing along and moving her arms, laughing to herself that she was dancing in the bath. She notices the water had turned cold. She hadn't noticed it had finally started raining and the temperature had dropped. She closes the window she had left open to get rid of the steam and turns on the hot tap again. By the end of the song she is sitting back, relaxed and with her eyes closed. Her eyes shoot open when she hears a very familiar voice. She hurries to get up to see him. Her bottom slips in the bath but she manages to grab the edge of the tub just in time to prevent the back of her head hitting the back of the bath. The sudden movement splashes water onto the floor. She reaches for her towel and throws it onto the floor to soak up the excess water. She then grabs her phone and smiles at the sight of Nikolaj. Her heart beats so fast it feels like it will break out of her chest. She rewinds the video because she had missed most of it. 

“He looks scruffy”, is her first thought and she laughs.” He is talking about climate change, of course. What else? Oh, his hair has grown. I guess Nukaka hasn’t given him a lockdown haircut. His beard is sort of trimmed, at least that!” Gwendoline notices. Nikolaj laughs when he refers to being in school over 30 years ago… “You still haven’t accepted you’re turning 50 in exactly a month from now, have you?” Gwendoline realises she’s talking out loud now and laughs. She feels a certain warmth taking over her heart as it slows down it's erratic beating. Nikolaj’s short speech finishes and someone else comes on so Gwendoline rewinds the video again. She now pays attention to his eyes. She notices his wrinkles and grey hair and thinks “He is ageing well. Even if he looks like he makes an effort to not look well. He can clean up really well if he has to but it’s like he doesn’t want to be paid too much attention to.” He had often told her that he hates all the comments about how attractive he is. He once made a valid point by asking why do women make such sexually aggressive comments towards male actors/models/singers who are considered to be good looking by modern society standards? Women shout harassment as soon a man comments on how attractive they are, they protest against being objectified but they soon forget all that when it comes to men. They feel free to shout out: you’re hot/a hunk and all sort of suggestive things that make him blush, and he is not one of those people who blushes easily. Isn’t that objectification as well? Women seem to have double standards on that. Gwendoline knows that even if Nikolaj worked hard to get where he is, there are certain aspects of being famous he hates and he tries to have a normal life. When he is not working, he does not bother at all with how he looks. It's his way of switching off from all the craziness that comes with celebrity. "Look at that creased shirt! I bet you are in shorts and flip-flops and that’s why you set the camera so high” she comments laughing.  


When the video finishes, Gwendoline rewinds it once more. “I can't see your hands. Nikolaj, you always gesticulate too much when you talk about something you are passionate about. Hmmm, I wonder if you're wearing you wedding band “, Gwendoline zooms in and stares at the screen. “Yes, you do!”. She ignores the slight sting she feels into her heart and rewinds the video for one last time, putting the phone back on the windowsill and leans back into the bath. She closes her eyes and focusses on his voice. “Oh, I have missed you, Nikolaj”.  


When Nik's slot finishes, Gwendoline does not reach for her phone again. She makes an effort to relax. She keeps her eyes closed. She is weighing up the idea of texting him. This would be a good excuse to say “Hi, I see you’re still alive. “ She never expected to not hear from him. She thought he would text her or call her by now. They have had arguments before and they didn’t speak for months sometimes but then all of the sudden he would text something like “Are you over being grumpy?” and she’d forget all about why they even argued. Or she would text something to change the subject and they would just continue as nothing had happened. But this time it was different. This time she wanted him to make an effort. This time she was setting new standards. If he would contact her, she wouldn’t ignore him but he would have to make the first step. So she decided against texting him.

When the concert finishes, Gwendoline climbs out of the bath, dries herself, tidies up the bathroom, puts on her silk nightie and slips into bed holding her phone. She opens her Twitter app again and looks at Nik’s page. He has been watching it and he tweeted right before his slot. There are already lots of likes, retweets and replies. She looks at what people commented… “I love you Jaime” Gwendoline reads one of the comments “Oh, come on! His name is Nikolaj, not Jaime!!! Who do people identify us with our characters? They are not real, we are real people!”Gwendoline growls. She remembers Jaime’s line “Call her by her name, her name is Lady Brienne!” and smiles at the memory. She wasn’t even in the scene but it’s probably one of her favourite Jaime moments. She loved with how much gusto Jaime slaps the man who disrespected Brienne. She loved that look of satisfaction on Nik's face at the end of the scene. Gwendoline’s eyes return to her phone, she rolls her eyes thinking "Would you scream I love you to a stranger? People really do odd things on social media!" and scrolls down. Her heart sinks when she reaches some negative comments. “It’s no wonder Nikolaj never looks at his notifications, and very rarely replies to tweets.” She remembers when they talked about social media and his love-hate relationship with it. “Many areas of his life seem to have this love-hate dynamic” Gwendoline laughs and places her phone on charge just as she hears the key turn in the lock. "Yay, Giles is back!” she says while getting up to go greet him.


End file.
